


Little Black Box

by zvi



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter
Genre: Action, Character of Color, Cunnilingus, F/F, Fisting, Magic Made Them Do It, Tribadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvi/pseuds/zvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anita wakes up in the dark. She's not alone. She's never alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Black Box

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LGBT fest. Prompt: 58. Anita is forced to deal with her homophobia.

I woke in the dark, in pain, and with another person wrapped around me— a woman who smelled like pack. I pushed her off of me, or tried to.

"Don't move, Anita," said Sylvie. "Your head was bleeding pretty badly when they dumped you in here." She curled herself around me even more tightly.

I pulled my right arm free and touched my head. It was clean. I figured Sylvie had licked the blood away, but I so did not want to know for sure. "Who threw me in here? Where's here?" The last thing I remembered was parking the car at Animators, Inc. As far as I knew, no one was trying to kill me, so I had been alone.

I flexed my muscles and discovered that I'd lost my gun holster, which meant I was going to have to depend on Sylvie to deal with any physical threats. That pissed me off enough that I tried to shove her off again. This time she rolled with it, as far as she was able.

That wasn't far. We were in a very small space, like double-wide coffin small. My pulse and breathing sped up when I realized that the lid was maybe four inches from my nose.

"Anita, what's wrong?" asked Sylvie.

"Little claustrophobic," I said.

"Ah," she said. What else was there to say? Werewolves are strong, but punching your way out of a buried coffin? Strictly a movie trick.

"Did you see who grabbed you? Do you know who would want to grab you?"

"All I remember is leaving the house this morning at 7:30, like any other day. They must have come from downwind," she said. She sounded worried and distant. I remembered that Sylvie's girlfriend, Gwen, had just moved in with her last month. A small part of me, sounding like my stepmother Judith, wondered if Nathaniel had thought to send them a housewarming present. I don't understand what would make any woman a lesbian, but since my last official boyfriend count was four, and that didn't include as many or more guys I fucked on a regular basis, I didn't exactly have a moral high horse to ride on.

Thinking about my guys reminded me that I could get help from more than just Sylvie. I first tried to open the connections between me and Jean-Claude or me and Damian, since they were most likely to be able to drop everything and come running. But it was the middle of the day, which meant they were both dead, empty shells I could have filled with my power and moved liked dolls. That was normal for Jean-Claude, but Damian had started daywalking. I didn't know what it meant, that he was inanimate right now, except that I needed to get out of here as soon as possible.

Next, I tried Richard. Leaning on Richard for anything made me grumpy. Not only is our relationship in a weird place after he deserted us in the Church of Eternal Life, but also, I was probably going to break in on a junior high biology class. I think Richard being a teacher is a wonderful thing, and I know that if people realize he's 'different',he'd probably lose his job. But my connection to Nathaniel is shaky and uncertain at the best of times, while my strong, steady bond with Micah is completely wordless.

I brushed at Richard's mind, and I felt his astonishment and a small sting of annoyance. _Give me a second, Anita._ I stayed far enough out of his head that I couldn't see or hear the reaction of his students to his fake-coughing fit and muttered, "Excuse me, guys."

_Sylvie and I were kidnapped. As far as I know, no one's out to get me, so I bet this is pack business. you should find out where Jamil and Shang-Da are, right now. Call Micah, have him call the police and report me taken. Get Gwen to report Sylvie missing if we're not found by tomorrow. I was grabbed from the work parking lot around 11, and Sylvie was grabbed from her driveway around 7._

_Are you hurt?_ he asked. _You're together?_

_I got hit on the head, but nothing else I've noticed._

_Do you know who did it?_

_I don't know. I told you, I don't think it's a coincidence your _bolverk_ and _geri_ were picked up on the same day by the same people._ I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. Meaningless in the pitch dark while talking psychically. _I need you to do one more thing. Get Nathaniel to start feeding the _ardeur_ right away. I haven't eaten today—_

I got a blast of disapproval from him. _Anita!_ A little worry, too, which was nice.

_I brought breakfast to work, but I got kidnapped before I could eat, damn it. And now Damian doesn't feel … right. I'm worried about him._

I could feel Richard's temper flare, a red-orange wash over the black nothing in front of me. I didn't care, I didn't have time for his messy emotional shit.

I felt him tamp down on it, and then he asked _What can you tell me about where you are?_

_Not much. It's a six-by-six box with no light. We're not moving._ My confinement being brought up sent my pulse racing again.

_What does Sylvie smell?_

Stupid! Trapped with a werewolf and I don't ask what she smells. I tried to keep up with the preternatural biology journals, but apparently I needed to take a few practical courses. "Sylvie, can you smell anything?I'm telling Richard what he needs to tell the cops."

"You can't call the cops on me!" she said. "I'm not out."

"No, but I am. They'll call and report me missing, but it'll be easier to find us with more information. So, what do you smell?"

I heard her take a deep breath, then another, felt her chest rise and fall against my left arm. Then she coughed and gagged a little. "Dead people and flowers. Gah! I hate embalming fluid."

I wondered when Sylvie had learned to recognize the scent of embalming fluid, but I didn't ask. I let Richard know we were in a graveyard.

_Okay. You've been kidnapped, you're buried alive in a graveyard, Nathaniel needs to start fucking and eating for Damien. I'll go make calls, but first…._ I felt him gather himself up to say something. Was I really so scary he had to prepare to tell me something in the middle of an emergency? _Tonight's a full moon, Anita. If we can't get you out before it comes up, you're going to have to hurt Sylvie. Please try not to kill her._

Damn it. I'd known about the moon, couldn't not know about it sleeping with four lycanthropes, but in my pain and panic I'd forgotten about it._They took my gun, Richard. I wasn't carrying a knife. I'm not plainjane human, but how the hell am I supposed to keep a full-grown werewolf off me?_

_You're in a graveyard, Anita._ And with that, he pulled away and I lost all sense of him.

I was definitely not firing on all cylinders. In a sense, a graveyard was the safest place I could ever be. The dead are mine. I call to them from a place inside me which has been there since I was born, which has nothing to do with my beast from Richard or my hunger from Jean Claude. The dead are mine.

So, I relaxed and let the cold wind at the heart of me spread out. It passed by Sylvie as too warm, too quick to touch, and reached out to the grounds. It was a young cemetery, more than anything else. An unusually high number of bodies were cremations, which I _can_ work with but which are awful in terms of energy required. Luckily, there were plenty of intact bodies and none of these people seemed to have died more than forty years ago, which was good.

Normally, I put on the ointment, I walk a circle, I call with blood and salt and steel to bring out my dead. But lately I'd realized that I could call without those rituals, that they were mostly just a way to focus and contain my power and my zombies. I didn't have to have them all. The only one that was really required was the blood.

On the other hand, a lycanthrope's control weakens as the moon waxes. Sylvie was an alpha, so her control was stronger than most. But stronger isn't infinite, and we were too close for me to make any mistakes. "Sylvie, if I raise some of the corpses here, they can dig us out."

"I'm all for that."

"It's going to take some blood."

"Today's the full moon, Anita. That's not a great idea."

"It's after noon, now. It's summer, so we probably have another six hours until the moon's up. You want to gamble that they'll find us before then, or that you can control yourself now?"

For the first time, I heard Sylvie's voice get that thick, growly undertone that signaled an impending change. "It's not just the moon and the blood. You're afraid. And in my head, I know it's not me you're afraid of, but," she exhaled slowly, "it smells good."

"Right now," I said slowly, trying to do everything slowly, trying to breathe deep and relax, "my only problem is the box. When you're hungrier and furrier, I won't suddenly get more secure."

"Please," she said, voice strained, "don't be flip. It's annoying."

"Sorry," I said, and I was, too. Only a complete idiot deliberately picks a fight with a werewolf on the day of the full-moon, even if she isn't trapped in a box with one. "How long do you think you can holdout, if I do this. A zombie will dig us out as fast as it can, but I don't think there will be any shovels. It could take a while."

"Do it," she said.

"Okay." And then I realized it wasn't okay. My animating kit has a big ass machete to cut chickens with. And every other time I've had to raise the dead to deal with bad guys, there'd been a fight where someone was already conveniently bleeding. "You've got to do it."

"What?" said Sylvie.

"You can do a partial change, right? Make a claw and scratch me. I don't have a knife."

There was a long, long moment of silence where I wondered if I could use my teeth to scratch up some blood. Then the air changed, and I shot out my left arm in front of my face, and Sylvie raked four deep furrows in my forearm. "One claw, Sylvie, I said _one_ claw," I muttered.

"Sorry," she said, deep and strangled.

"Never mind." I closed my eyes. Ridiculous, because I couldn't see anything, but it helped me to stop looking into the darkness, let me focus. And I would need to focus, because the blood wasn't exactly touching the graveyard's dirt, but I was hoping that being inside the ground was close enough. I opened back up to my dead, and they were there, clearer and more solid than they had been before I had blood to call them with. I picked four corpses who seemed to have died strapping young men, and I called to them. _Come for me_ was the message I sent them. _Come for me_.

And they did. I couldn't _see_ what they were doing, couldn't hear, touch, or taste them, but I felt it, all the same, knew that they rose and shambled over to us, knew that they were pulling at the earth with bare hands, getting their nice funeral suits filthy. I knew when one of them lost a fingernail, and when another chipped a tooth, although I wasn't exactly clear on how. Zombie-raising had never been so intimate before. My control was entirely magic; all of the information I had about them came through my talent instead of my eyes or ears.

The deep connection meant I wasn't startled when they started scraping against the box, but the noise made Sylvie whimper. "It's okay," I said. "They're on our side." She was quiet, but I could feel her twitching right next to me. I hate nervous werewolves. A werewolf's body is a deadly weapon, compared to me. And a nervous werewolf is like a nervous stickup guy: you do your best to cooperate and keep him relaxed and cool, but it could go off at any time. "You want me to hold your hand, Sylvie?"

She grabbed at me and squeezed, so hard she hurt me, but it was my left hand, so I let her.

A little while later I said, "They're going to pick us up now. We're going to get bumped around."

Sylvie whimpered more, and wrapped herself around me. She buried her head in my shoulder, which felt weird, because she's half a head taller than me.

"They'll go on three," I said. "One. Two." _Pull_. "Three." It wasn't a clean lift by any means, but they managed to keep us right side up. They laid us on the ground. "Sylvie, it's your turn. Kick us out of here."

She let go of me and shuffled back onto her side. "One. Two. Three." The box lid exploded off and I was blinded by the sun. I felt Sylvie scrabble out of the box ahead of me, and moved my hand from my eyes. The headache was back, worse than ever, and I turned my face from the sun. _Go back._ I told my zombies. _Rest. Be at peace._ I felt them go down, felt them fade back to bones and rags, no more lively than any other corpse in the cemetery.

Sylvie reached in and pulled me out of the box. I kept myself from kicking her, because I was trying not to be petty. "I think the entrance is to the west," she said and headed off in that direction.

I took a step to follow her, and then I stumbled, fell. I was dizzy and sick-feeling all of a sudden, and I was afraid but I didn't know of what.

Sylvie's head snapped around to me, and she drew in a deep breath. "Anita?"

The world faded away to white, and then I got pulled to Nathaniel, felt his breathing start to slow down and his cock failing, going soft, his fear rising. I felt for Damian, and he was almost gone, a tiny, tiny spark that had almost faded. I pushed power in him, just a little, all I could spare, but I knew it wasn't enough, not for long.

Sylvie touched my face and the world faded back in. "Are you all right?"

"No," I said. I grabbed her hand, and I felt what I hadn't felt in months, felt that need, that _hunger_ rise up without me trying for it. I pulled away from her and wound up flat on my back.

"Anita?" She reached for me.

"Don't touch me!" I closed my eyes, clenched my fists.

"What's wrong? Is it your head?"

I could feel her body close to mine, so warm and solid. I curled up in a ball so I wouldn't touch her. "I need to fuck," I moaned.

"What?" she said. She moved away, and I leaned towards her until I caught myself.

"I'm a, a succubus."

There was a thud as she sat down beside me. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"No," I said, and curled in on myself tighter. I was rubbing my own arms, not for sexiness, but because I was cold. _Soon, Damian, I promise._ It was a lie, there was nothing to do. If Richard could have fed me power, he would have. Same for Micah and Nathaniel. I just hoped that when Damian went, he wouldn't pull me and Nathaniel with him.

Sylvie took a deep breath and said, "I'll make Gwen understand, somehow. You're white as a sheet." She reached out, put a hand on my shoulder. "And ice-cold."

"What?" I said. And then I shook my head. "It won't work. I have to want it." I started shivering, and Sylvie pulled me into her lap.

"I can make you want it," she said. She ran her hands down my arms. "You're not just yanking my chain, this is life and death, isn't it?"

I nodded. My teeth were chattering, but I forced out, "Won't work. Straight."

"You don't have to be gay to do this, Anita," she said. Her mouth was by my ear, breathing into it, a damp warmth I found myself leaning into. "It's not about identity," she said, as she worked a hand under my shirt, just rubbing my belly, not grabbing at my tits. "It's about touching and tasting," she said, and then she licked my jaw.

I stopped shivering, felt my body still. I tried to go with it, to relax into her, but I was stiff all over.

Sylvie had stopped talking really, she was just sort of humming and murmuring to herself. Her hands were all over me, light touches with the pads of her fingers that just barely connected with my skin.

It made me…twitchy. It was hard to anticipate where her hands were going, and there was nothing solid to get accustomed to. I couldn't help myself, I tried to squirm away from her.

Sylvie clamped an arm around me, and I was trapped. "Be here with me," she breathed into my ear. She got one hand to the back of my neck and licked my jaw, and suddenly I could feel it, could feel the _ardeur_ burning inside me.

"Sylvie," I said, but I didn't say anything else, because I knew I wanted, needed, burned to be touched, but I was still confused as to what I wanted her to do, what she could do. But I did reach for her, touch her arm, and that was enough, that triggered the _ardeur_ between us, and even if I didn't know what I wanted to do, I knew we needed more fucking skin to do it with.

My shirt was already pushed up, so I pulled it off. Sylvie smiled at me and undid my bra. She bent over like she was going to suckle, but I stopped her, because I wanted _her_ shirt off, too. She laughed and pulled it off, and I tried to undo her bra, but that's a really fucking different maneuver when you're doing it around some other body and backwards, so she pulled away from me and did it herself.

Then she grabbed me up and kissed me, hard and wet, and I growled and bit her, because everything so far had been much too soft.

She growled and threw me on my back, then she damn well chewed on my right boob, and I screamed and kicked because I liked it. She pulled my pants and my panties down to mid-thigh, just enough to make me feel trapped beneath her. I grabbed her head and pulled her further up, stuck my hands down the back of her pants and grabbed her ass, really sank my nails in.

She bit my shoulder and panted on me, got her thigh between my legs and shoved in the general direction of my crotch, pushing at pussy over and over. I pushed my ass up at her, greedy for friction, but I was so wet we slid across each other and I mostly felt the most tremendous pressure. I came, screaming and crying, raking bloody trails up her back. I could barely breathe, barely think, but I took all of that energy and shoved it at Damian. It was like blowing on embers, I saw his life flare and then dull to a sullen glow. He wasn't dead yet, but this wasn't nearly enough.

Sylvie had one hand on my face, and she was whispering, "Anita, Anita, Anita," when I tuned back into my body.

I blinked slowly at her, once, twice. Then I said, "What do I do for you?"

"Lie down," she said and pushed me back on the ground. She licked her way down along my belly (which, now that I was a little more present, scared me somewhat), then licked her way to my thighs. I levered myself up to look down, between my legs. "Sylvie, what do you want?"

She looked up at me, and her eyes had bled to a luminous, frightening green. "I want to eat you all up," she growled.

Without even thinking about it, I put my hands in her thick blonde curls and pulled her up and away from my body. She whined, like a dog whose had its promised treat yanked away. "Let me do you, Sylvie." I kissed her, not on the mouth, but biting the chin. That was a tricky move, a statement of dominance, and I didn't know if she'd take it, but she did. She rolled on her back and I rolled on top of her. I took her breast in my mouth and I sucked. It was strange, none of the guys I usually sleep with was really into having their nipples sucked. It wasn't like balls or a soft cock, at all, it was its own thing; I kind of liked it, which was also really weird. I let her go and licked my way to her belly button, and I blew in it, just to see what happens.

She twitched, hard enough to jar my chin, and I sat up, got out of harm's way. Sylvie took this opportunity to pull her skirt up and pantyhose and panties down, and, wow, she was a serious fountain. The funky sweet smell hit me, and it was familiar, but different from what I'm used to, because usually I'm the only girl in my bed while I'm fucking. I sort of didn't know where to start. It's not that I've never masturbated, but everything was upside down and backwards, and, also, the _ardeur_ had gotten enough juice from _my_ orgasm that I wasn't blinded by lust and starving for it, the way I had been earlier. I _needed_ this, though, needed it for Damian, so I reached out with one hand and petted her.

"Anita," Sylvie whined. "Come on, girl, stick your hand in me." I put one finger inside her, where she was wet and warm, the first time I've ever been inside a woman. She squeezed on my finger and said, "I'm serious about your whole fucking hand." She pushed her ass up at me, legs wide open, pussy wet and swollen. I gave her another two fingers, and she took them like they were nothing. She was whimpering and blinking and I could see her face changing, mouth and nose elongating into a muzzle. She growled a little, deep in her throat, and I gave her the rest of my hand. As I slipped my thumb inside her, the _ardeur_ rose again. I bent to her, licked at her wetness, all the time pushing inside of her with my arm, a steady pounding she rode like a wave. I finally made my way to her clit, and sucked on it, and that's when she came, and when she changed (shapeshifter goop flying everywhere), and when the _ardeur_ was satisfied, because I got two hits from Sylvie, once in human form and once in wolf form.

I pulled out from the wolf as gently as I knew how, but it was awkward. It didn't help that Sylvie was floppy and out of it. I sat back on the ground, mostly naked, covered in lycanthrope goop, with my stomach rumbling, because, however much my lusts had been satisfied I still hadn't eaten in about twenty hours.

Of course, that was exactly when four cars came speeding in the cemetery, lights flashing, sirens wailing, and too damn many cops and not nearly enough wereleopards pouring out.

EPILOGUE

While Sylvie and I were buried, Richard, Jamil, and Shang-Da took care of the problem. Our kidnappers were a couple of young upstarts from out of town looking to take over Thronos Rokke, now that it was less messed up than it had been. They gave Sylvie their bones to add to her enemies collection.

RPIT hasn't called me in for a consult since the kidnapping. It's only been a month, and they recognize and can deal with a lot of things. But I got Larry to ask Detective Tammy to ask Zerbrowski, and the word from Dolph is that they're not supposed to bring me in unless they've got no other choice. Zerbrowski said that they just want to know _what_ I am before they bring me back in. At this point, if I knew I would tell them. I don't want anyone, human or monster, to die in St. Louis because I couldn't stand to come out.

Speaking of coming out: the reaction from my guys to what happened was a lot more muted than I expected. Richard was unhappy, but he didn't threaten Sylvie and he didn't throw a tantrum. He just said he had to go and he'd call back later. We've talked since, but not about this, and I think maybe we aren't going to. Micah, Nathaniel, and Damien just wanted to know if things were normal between me and Sylvie. Jason was a little too interested in the details, but I hit him on the nose and he backed down. Asher didn't care at all. Jean-Claude just wanted to know if I would let other women serve as emergency food, and I said sure. We retired red shirts in favor of red wristbands awhile ago. We didn't have to pass out that many more, but more than I had expected.

What I didn't expect, what I was really sort of mad at, was Claudia. She had Rafael pull her off my bodyguard detail. I didn't notice at first — Claudia got my detail a lot, but I didn't always have bodyguards. But when it twigged that I hadn't seen her at all for a while, I got her number from Rafael and called.

She said she couldn't work bodyguard detail with someone who might want to fuck her. It was _distracting_. When I told her I didn't want to fuck her, because I'm _straight_, she said that once upon a time I'd been celibate by choice.

The thing that pissed me off was, she's right. It turned out I'm not as straight as I thought I was. And I have started to _notice_ women in a way I never did before. But this _ardeur_ stuff was never my choice. I couldn't help what I was, and I've stopped apologizing for or regretting it.

But I miss having her around. She was the woman in my life who got me the most. And if I could get past her disapproval, I'd want to try being just friends.


End file.
